As the 2012 presidential race ever so slowly gains momentum it remains clear that social media will be influencing elections for a long time to come. In the long run, does the shift towards social media campaigning change who is perceived to be a legitimate candidate? If so, social media might change who wins elections and therefore changes how we are governed. Avoiding [for now] the issue of whether social media has inherent tendencies towards the left or right, what I want to ask is: opposed to old media, does new media benefit political underdogs and outsiders?

As Republicans announce presidential bids on Twitter and Obama gets friendly with Zuckerberg and Facebook, it seems that the presidential campaign has found itself augmented by and reliant upon social media tools; some of the very same tools many of us use, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on. Part of their popularity is that one can view and be viewed by people from all over the world in an instant and for no cost. It does not cost money to publish this post or to tweet about it later on. Social media campaigning is also relatively cheap; indeed, often times free. Alternatively, print advertising is expensive because space is scarce and the scarcity of broadcast time makes television and radio too costly for underdogs and outsiders to fairly compete. However, when we exchange atoms for bits we enter into a world of abundance, a world where broadcasting a message quickly and globally becomes cheap and easy.

This cheaper social-media campaign style may remove or at least lesson the barriers to entry for candidates now considered too marginal to be legitimate. As the major national parties support well-known figures often with pedigree bloodlines and major corporate backers, major campaigns are simply too costly for many outsiders to become serious contenders. Many have argued from both sides of the aisle that American politics is far too controlled by money. Things grew more heated when the Supreme Court controversially stated that corporations should be treated as citizens when it comes to free political speech, thereby greatly increasing their ability to influence elections. However, social media allows anyone to create a presence and communicate one’s political ideas to anyone with an Internet connection. Today, your potential audience on Twitter is the same as Barak Obama’s.

Well, theoretically at least.

Even if all campaigning went the way of social media [and it won’t, campaigning will increasingly be an augmentation of social media, old media and on-the-ground efforts], offline inequalities tend to be replicated online. Social media is not the “flat world” so-called cyberlibertarians describe, where ideas rise to the top based only on their merit. Instead, those with the most fame and notoriety offline have a massive advantage when it comes to garnering Facebook “friends” and Twitter “followers” online. Being an incumbent, having the support of a major party, and having lots of cash-on-hand are by far the most important factors in gaining a successful social media presence. While social media campaigning and fundraising may be cheap, building an impressive Internet platform like the highly effective my.barakobama.com is not. It seems unlikely that social media will bring a massive “revival of American democracy” by ushering in an age of candidates gaining popularity based on merit alone. Simply, the Internet is not flat.

While not the magic bullet for American democracy, will social media’s potential democratization of campaigning and fundraising reduce, if even slightly, the barriers for entry to the political process?

Comments 5

replqwtil — June 4, 2011

This a really interesting question, and I can see it being raised and answered in several different ways. There is a, sort of, dualistic mindset means of understanding this topic, and a more 'integrated' view of the offline/online split which I see as more in step with this blog as a whole. This post is kind of an interesting piece which almost sits between the two for me.

I feel like the question being raised could be phrased as whether social media ‘online’ is a destabilizing, or stabilizing, force on ‘offline’ politics. Or rather, does the augmentation of politics through social media ‘change the game’ as it were, or merely reproduce the system as it exists presently? Its a pretty compelling question.

Framed in a context where we “exchange atoms for bits” and “enter into a world of abundance” it seems clear that the role of the internet should be a game changer. But if, as you note, the old world is merely being reproduced in a new digital layer, such that “offline inequalities tend to be replicated online”, then we will undoubtedly see the same patterns of previous electoral campaigns reproduced as well. With similar outcomes and processes.

However, both these possible responses stem from a view of the question based in a sense of 'digital dualism', in which the offline and online are separate spheres whose effects can be differentiated as they act on each other. In a world where the physical is being, not affected, but Augmented through the digital we should necessarily see a much more complex interaction between social media and politics.

It is this third response which I find exceedingly difficult to frame... In what ways does social media fundamentally alter politics? Not the process of politics, but the very functioning of the citizenry between themselves and with the politicians. It seems like the role of social media will be less destabilizing/reinforcing then, but instead more evolving. It totally alters the types of pressures which the political system will have to respond to. I expect that the reactions we are likely to see from all actors involved, as well as the institutions themselves, will be totally novel and likely unpredictable.

Perhaps this is the thing I find most interesting about the concept of an 'augmented' reality. The fact of it being a totally novel scenario, one which is difficult if not impossible to predict outcomes or effects for, since it is not something which is happening To reality from outside it (dualistic) but rather a transformation of reality itself into a totally new system. It really is interesting to watch!

repletus — June 27, 2011

If social media has something bigger to give than a 'tweak' to the current model, it is my opinion that it will be decades before we find out.

True, there are amazing movements and subcultures brewing on the net, which are being formed through social media. However, the same institutional forces that have been influencing media for decades have and will adapt to new media forms. In my mind, much of Chomsky's propaganda model will continue to hold true for quite some time. Powerful institutions and corporate power structures will adapt their strategies to fit current technology trends.

One interesting hypothesis would be that in the future it will be harder to convert audiences to a particular message, regardless of the amount of capital one has access to, as social media users become more aware of the media gimmicks used to persuade them. Will this happen? Only time will tell...

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About Cyborgology

We live in a cyborg society. Technology has infiltrated the most fundamental aspects of our lives: social organization, the body, even our self-concepts. This blog chronicles our new, augmented reality.